


Aftermath

by Andramion



Series: A Week's Worth of Yachi Pairs [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Getting Together, once more I am here with fluff, or well, something like that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 06:10:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5279741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andramion/pseuds/Andramion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm just in town for the weekend unexpectedly and I thought, why not pop by on Saturday so I can see my favourite kouhai?"</p><p>Koushi ignores the following squabble over who exactly that is in favour of looking at where Yachi is. Koushi knows she has a very good guess of who that favourite kouhai is.</p><p>~</p><p>In which Koushi realises that picking a different time than his graduation ceremony to confess to Yachi would have saved him a lot of worrying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

The sounds coming from the second gymnasium are as loud as Koushi remembers them; the bump of the volleyballs smacking down, the shouts with every jump, the squeak of shoes on linoleum, all those sounds worm their way into Koushi and knock him the tiniest bit off balance. He wants to move, get rid of the excess energy that seems to suddenly release in his body at the idea of _playing_.

He can't really pretend he doesn’t miss the game. It's more than just volleyball, though. It's walking across the Karasuno grounds, seeing people he's never seen before in spots that used to be _his_ spot. The tree under which he'd have emergency cram sessions with Daichi before the test they both forgot about. The table in the courtyard where Asahi dumped the contents of his bento over Daichi's sweater the first time he asked to eat lunch with them.

Koushi has trouble coming to terms with the fact that he's not just a horrible sap, but that he's feeling _old_ when he looks at this place. Koushi feels old often, but he doesn’t feel _old_ , nostalgic old, oh-those-good-times-back-then old. Sad old.

Suddenly, Koushi realises the sounds of volleyball have disappeared, or have at least been pushed away by surprised shouts and a few "dumbass"es being flung back and forth between Hinata and Kageyama, the two of them pushing at each other to both get a view of the person standing outside. There's a whole group of people standing in between him and the two, all of them gathering in the doorway.

"Suga-san!" Tanaka calls from the front of the group and through the tangle of limbs at the entrance to the gym, Koushi spots two of the new first-years curiously looking at their senpai. He can imagine why. Tanaka has probably been lording his status as 3rd-year over them to get out a few "senpai"s. It must be hard to imagine the polite kouhai version of him actually being the same person.

"Tanaka! Hi!" Koushi calls and he steps closer now, shuffling his shoes off as the others make place for him to step inside. He grins. Hinata pops up at his left almost immediately and for a moment Koushi has trouble shaking off the image of a puppy welcoming its owner back home.

"Sugawara-san! You didn’t tell me you were coming back!"

Koushi considers ruffling Hinata's hair for a second, but instead, he puts his hands on his hips and tells them all: "I'm just in town for the weekend unexpectedly and I thought, why not pop by on Saturday so I can see my favourite kouhai?"

He ignores the following squabble over who exactly that is in favour of looking at the short side of the gym. There, Yachi is very purposefully /not/ looking at him, or the team, or any of the commotion, as she shuffles things around on the edge if the stage, rearranging water bottles into a straight line, unfolding and refolding clean towels into a neat stack.

Koushi knows she has a very good guess of who that favourite kouhai is.

* * *

For the remaining two hours of practice, Koushi sits on the side of the court, his back against the wall as he watches. He likes this, he's _good_ at this: observing.

Earlier, Kageyama had pushed a notepad and pencil into his hands with a very serious request for Koushi to write down all the mistakes he could pick out. He's tapping the back of his pencil against the paper now, trying to keep from putting the end between his lips. It's a nervous habit, or just a habit in general - he isn’t sure, classrooms always had this slightly nervous feeling to them anyway - but this is _not his pencil_ and moreover, it's also not Kageyama's, judging from the small, bright yellow chick pattern.

 _Or maybe it is_ , Koushi thinks, _and that's okay_. But it still means he should _not_ be chewing on it. Does accidentally chewing on someone else's pencil count as an indirect kiss? Koushi doesn’t know. He’s not up to date on shoujo manga rules.

In any case, Koushi is good at observing. At taking in as much information as possible from just _watching_. But it's becoming a little hard to do so when there's a pair of red gym trousers less than two meters away from him, gym trousers that are Yachi's and... Koushi wonders why his brain is conjuring up the idea that gym trousers are a physical part of someone. It's done stranger things though, so he shrugs it off and tries to concentrate on the game his kouhai and _their_ new kouhai are playing. From the corner of his eye, though, he can still see gym- Yachi's legs shifting as she moves around.

He doesn't understand how she can be so _in motion_  while standing still. Her hands flutter, grab at her jacket, her feet shuffle, her eyes dart.

Maybe he's looking too much.

He drags his eyes back to the net again, both sides of the court in his sight as he watches. He doodles a little. He takes notes about the new middle blocked not landing the right way after his jumps. He'll point it out to Ennoshita later too. Good knees are precious. You can't jump with rusty springs.

When they round up practice, after Ennoshita's had the team huddle up and everyone's gone and changed into warm track suits and when the promise of meat buns as Kinoshita's treat to everyone is making the first-years (and, to be fair, Hinata) excited, Koushi hands the stationery back to Kageyama. He only spots the tooth-sized dents in the end when Kageyama passes the pencil to Yachi with a soft "thanks".

Koushi thinks about shoujo manga again.

* * *

 

"OKAY! So," Tanaka starts, after the neat buns are all finished and the team is about to split up on their way home, at the bottom of the hill. "Since Suga-san is hardly ever here -" (there's a faint protest from Koushi that it's still only the start of the school year and that he lives three hours away) "- I think Suga-san should get to walk Yacchan home!"

Tanaka grins like he's bestowing the biggest gift he can imagine on Koushi.

From his right, Ennoshita leans closer and tells Koushi: "They take turns. It made the first-years stop following her around in a pack whenever walking home was mentioned."

"I'm sure she appreciates that," Koushi replies, his voice soft enough that the others don't hear it. Then, louder, and to everyone: "Sure, I'd love to."

For the first time that evening, Yachi meets his eyes, and Koushi feels a rush of relief when she doesn't look... well, he isn't sure what he has expected after graduation, and silence, and distance, but he's glad she at least doesn’t seem opposed to Tanaka's suggestion.

There are a few comments from one particularly cheeky first year ("but Tanaka-senpai, someone _from the team_ is supposed to walk her home") but other than that, the groups breaks up into smaller ones with every intersection they pass.

And then, it's just Koushi and Yachi, in her Karasuno VBC jacket and still wearing those red, school-issued trousers. Koushi briefly wonders what happened to the black ones that go with the jacket, but realises it's probably inappropriate to think about a girl's trousers so much. He doesn’t know the rules about girl clothing either. He's also not sure shoujo manga would clear this one up for him.

"Uhm," Yachi says next to him, and Koushi turns his head to look at her. _She's so tiny_ , he thinks. Not like Shimizu, or like his sister, who's practically the same height as him.

Koushi hums to show he's heard her. She's not looking at him.

"Sugawara.. -senpai..."

"You don't have to be so formal, it's okay."

She laughs a little at this and Koushi watches her rub at the back of her neck.

"W-well then.. Suga-san," she continues, and something in Koushi's stomach tightens up. He already knows what they're going to talk about, what's going to happen today, and he thought he was prepared for it when he stepped out of his parents' house, but now that the moment is here...

Yachi lets out a forced little laugh and Koushi releases his breath when she says "it's been a while since we've talked, huh?"

Koushi hums again, agreeing.

"Since graduation," he adds.

He can clearly remember the feeling of Yachi's coat under his fingers, the fabric thick and fluffy. The smell of her hair when he rested his chin on the top of her head. The feeling of her arms around his waist too.

"I said you didnt need to answer immediately," Koushi says, trying to keep his voice light, _just teasing_ , he tells himself. "I didnt think that would mean not talking at all."

Yachi's step falters for a second, and Koushi curses softly. He didnt mean to say it that way. It's okay, he thinks, you've had more than a month to prepare for this.

He should have told her sooner. Straight after Spring High. Back when they still had some time together on the same team, in the same school if nothing else. He could've come to school pretending to want to study for entrance exams in the silence of the library. He could've maybe..

Yachi stops walking, and Koushi turns to face her. She bows. A perfect 90 degree angle between her legs and upper body, arms stiff by her sides. Koushi doesn’t know if his heart stops or sinks. What good are phrases when your stupid heart is still beating just fine in your chest while the metaphorical one is squashed?

"Suga-san! I'm sorry!" she tells him, but Koushi's hands already fly up to tap at her shoulders, for comfort, for damage-control, for-

"I wanted to talk to you sooner, but.. graduation was such a whirlwind and then you were away and calls make me nervous and texts seemed too impersonal and your phone number's been sitting on my pin board all this time and then you were suddenly here and I was not prepared to.. _for_! Prepared for! Talking... about this... now."

She looks up now, really looks Koushi in the eyes properly for the first time and Koushi realises that the thing shimmering in her eyes is determination.

His heart steps on the breaks a little faster. Finds a new, unexplored deep-sea trench to hide in.

His mouth is moving - "It's okay, Yachi, I.. thanks for answering." - but all he's thinking is _if I'd held out one more day..._

"No, I'm really sorry," Yachi says, bowing her head to him again, though not her whole body this time. "I didnt even need to think about it, I was just so shocked that I couldn’t... think of words.. immediately. I really wanted to answer you sooner."

"So," she ends.

"So...," Koushi repeats after her, looking at the crack in the asphalt of the road. _I didnt even need to think about it._

"So," she starts a new sentence, "now that I've... we've.. talked.. would it be okay for me to.. call you.. from now on?"

Koushi looks up again, and Yachi's face is painted in confusion at his surprise.

"Why would you want to.. " Koushi asks, his breath somehow coming out, even though his chest feels so tight that surely there couldn’t be any air left in his lungs.

"Because.. that's what people do?" Yachi's confused expression only grows deeper when Koushi doesn't react in any other way than gaping at her.

"You want to talk? On the phone?"

Yachi's ears turn red - only her ears, no blood rushing to her cheeks or neck and Koushi thinks it's adorable.

"I like.. talking like this more," she tells him, "but I also.. want to call. If that's okay. And then I can tell you as often as I want to."

"Tell me what?"

"T-that I like... you. Too. A lot."

Koushi just stares for a moment. Daichi is right, he _does_ overthink things.

"I like you too," Koushi tells her. Confesses to her again.

"Me too." It's barely a murmur, but Koushi hears it, because her mouth is so close to his ear when he buries his face in her neck, his arms around her shoulders and her hands on his back.

"I just wanted to tell you in person the first time," she tells him, a little later, when they're walking again, her hand firmly grasped in his. _We_ both _overthink things_ , Koushi knows, but somehow this is easier, holding hands, not talking about how they stood in that side street, hiccupping (Yachi - something about nerves going away) and laughing (Koushi - at himself) and clinging onto each other (both - something about the whole relationship thing) for a while longer than either of them would've thought appropriate had they been thinking straight. Or _overthinking_.

Somehow it's easy to twine his fingers with Yachi's and walk her to her door (her _door,_ not the complex's entrance). Somehow it's easy to chat and catch up.

Somehow Koushi doesn't think he'll worry over when his phone screen will light up with Yachi's contact anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are always very welcome, so please feel free to let me know what you thought!


End file.
